Free to serve

Damon Plimmer - 3 Jul 2011

“Come to me, all who are weary and whose load is heavy; I will give you rest.”

It’s been a difficult few days for some in this community.

On Tuesday, the Grigg family paid their respects to a mother and a grandmother.

On Friday, a thousand or more people gathered at Wellesley College to remember the life of much loved and long serving teacher, Roger Mexted.

And I expect, right at this moment, the family of Doff Gentry, 8am parishioner, continue to sit beside her bed as Doff draws near to the end of her life.

It’s been a difficult few days alright.
And in such situations of death and dying, I am reminded again and again of just how fleeting and fragile our lives are and of how important it is to live each moment grateful for the gift that it is.

Death, we know, is a part of life.
It’s one of the great certainties of life.
We can’t avoid it.
But neither, I suggest, should we be afraid of it.

A friend said to Raewyn, my wife, the other day,
“Having faith must make coming to terms with death so much easier.”

This person is someone who struggles with religious faith.

And, in a sense, she is correct.
Faith does make death easier to accept.
For, at the core of my faith, is the belief we are created in love, and nothing, not even death, as the apostle Paul writes, can separate us from that love.

It’s the good news of the resurrection.
God’s life cannot be quenched by the grave;
for love and goodness and hope are stronger than all else.
But, at the same time, I think my friend is mistaken,
or at least she misunderstands what faith is really about.

Faith isn’t an insurance policy protecting us from when the inevitable strikes.
It is not wishful thinking, a panacea to help us through the harsh realities of life;
nor is it a ticket from this world to the next.

Some years ago I remember seeing an ad on TV which really irked me.
Funded by a local Wellington church, it showed a person, with a bible in his hand, looking up at the camera and saying, confidently,
“I know where I am going; do you?”

This isn’t what faith means to me.

Faith, for me, is instead all about being human, but being human in the fullest sense of the word, open and receptive to the God revealed in the self-giving love of Jesus Christ.

And, because faith is all about being human, the death of another, especially one we have loved dearly or admired, inevitably causes us to feel pain and anguish and heartache.

How could it be any other way?
That’s the price of love.

And that’s okay.

It’s what I felt as I sat and prayed with Doff and her family the other night.
It’s what I felt as I listened attentively to the tributes spoken at Violet Grigg’s funeral.
And it’s what I felt as I saw the tears well up in the eyes of those who came to remember and to give thanks for Roger’s life two days ago.

Faith doesn’t take away the sadness or the separation we feel when another dies.
But it does provide a language and a hope to help us move through the pain.

One verse often read out at funeral services is one we heard today.

“Come to me, all who are weary and whose load is heavy; I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble-hearted;
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy to wear, my load is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30

These words tend to be understood as offering comfort to the heavy hearted;
to those who have suffered much in life,
or are weary and exhausted by the stresses and strains of daily existence.

And certainly that’s one way to hear them.

Jesus comforted the broken-hearted and the distressed,
he spoke of the sorrowful finding consolation,
he healed the sick and had compassion on the hungry,
and 2000 years later we continue to speak of his outstretched arms reaching out and embracing us with his love.

But though this is true, our familiarity with this passage obscures its’ meaning.

The yoke Jesus speaks of is the Law, the Torah,
the set of rules governing every aspect of a person’s behaviour.

They were impossible to keep, and left people feeling burdened by guilt.

And Jesus came to set the people free.
He preached a message of love, a gospel of grace.

“You are loved,” he said.
“You are forgiven.”
“You are free.”

But not in the sense we can now do whatever we want.
Rather we are set free to serve God, with all our heart and soul and strength and mind.

In the context of this past week, it could be said we are set free to serve others,
to walk alongside those who struggle or suffer,
to bring hope to the helpless,
comfort to the distressed,
and life to the dying.

And so we come today, perhaps weary and emotionally jaded,
and Jesus’ words and the invitation to share in this act of communion,
do offer us comfort and the strength to go on.

They invite us to go deeper,
to find in the depth of our being,
that place where God is.

But they also challenge us to live in the fullness and freedom of God’s life,
to reach out to others with a generosity of spirit,
as Christ reaches out to us.
For in the giving of ourselves in love we discover what faith is all about.

Let me finish with this prayer from our prayer book.

God our Creator, our centre our friend,
we thank you for our good life,
for those who are dear to us,
for our dead, and all who have helped and influenced us,
and the extent to which we control our lives;
and most of all we thank you for the faith that is in us,
for our awareness of you and our hope in you.
Keep us, we pray you, thankful and hopeful
and useful until our lives shall end.
Amen.

A sermon preached in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne, on 3 July 2011, by the Venerable Damon Plimmer.